FBI targets LA’s City Hall, DWP in scathing investigation
FBI agents descended on Los Angeles’s City Hall and a public utilities agency Monday amid a wide-ranging federal probe into the local government, according to a new report.
Federal agents targeted City Hall, law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times, with an FBI van spotted outside the section that houses City Attorney Mike Feuer and several other government departments.
A rep for Feuer refused to say whether agents had come into the city attorney’s office, the Times said.
But the FBI publicly acknowledged that its investigators, armed with a search warrant, were at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on Monday.
“There is a search taking place at the DWP building. The affidavit in support of the search warrant is under seal by the court,” said FBI spokesman Rukelt Dalberis to the Times.
A spokesman for LA Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement, “We were notified earlier this morning that federal search warrants were being executed today.
“The mayor’s expectation is that any city employee who is asked to cooperate will do so fully and immediately.”
The development comes amid a probe into foreign investments in LA real estate, although it’s not clear yet whether the two are related, the Times said.
Among the local figures already targeted by search warrants are two councilmen, as well as high-level appointees of Garcetti and the council president, the paper said.
Also named are higher-ups in Chinese firms that are providing the funding for several new residential and hotel towers in downtown LA.
No one has been arrested in the probe.
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